Callie Beusman

W's annual Best Performances portfolio it out today; it features basically every human you'd expect to be featured (but WHERE IS SANDY BULLOCK?) wearing beautiful spring 2014 looks. As was the case last year, it was shot by Juergen Teller, and the interviews were conducted by Editor-at-Large Lynn Hirschberg.

There were six separate covers for this issue: one with Jennifer Lawrence, one with Amy Adams, one with Oprah, one with Lupita Nyong'o, one with Cate Blanchett, and one with Matthew McConaughey. Lupita's was — as one might expect — the best. (Jennifer Lawrence looked a bit caught-in-headlights, even for a Juergen Teller subject.)

"I was at the Oscars, waiting to hear if my name was called, and I kept
thinking, Cakewalk, cakewalk, cakewalk. I thought, Why is 'cakewalk'
stuck in my head? And then, as I started to walk up the stairs and the
fabric from my dress tucked under my feet, I realized my stylist had
told me, 'Kick, walk, kick, walk.' You are supposed to kick the dress
out while you walk, and I totally forgot because I was thinking about
cake! And that's why I fell."

Amanda Seyfried in Dior; Lupita Nyong'o in Saint Laurent.

Lupita Nyong'o, on impressing her dad:

"When I got the role in 12 Years a Slave, I called my father and said,
'Daddy, I got a part in a movie! Do you know Brad Pitt?' And he said,
'I've heard of him, but I don't know him personally.' I said,
'Well — he's producing this movie, and he's really big in Hollywood.' My
father paused and then said, 'So you have a job! Good. Congratulations!
And good night!' That call put everything in perspective."

"My character, Samantha, doesn't have a body. She's just a voice. And
yet the vocal work was extremely intimate. I spent all of my hours in a
little sound booth, and when I spoke the sex scenes, the windows
definitely fogged up. Spike [Jonze, the director] knocked on the door
and asked, 'Whoa — are you okay?' I said, 'I just want to throw a little
heat into this life.' "

"I wanted to shake up my relationship with my career. I didn't want to
do romantic comedies or action adventures anymore, so when those
projects came in, I said no. For about eight months, I kept saying no,
no, no—and then there was nothing being offered to say no to. That was
scary, but I was looking to be scared. Finally, the target drew the
arrow: I started getting calls to play characters. And here we are."

Idris Elba in Rag & Bone; Jared Leto in T by Alexander Wang.

Idris Elba, on getting too into character:

"I played Stringer Bell, a drug dealer, on The Wire, and the power of
that part was amazing. Real drug dealers and thugs would think I was
truly a gangster. They gave me a lot of respect— they'd hand me cocaine
as a kind of salute. At times I had to remind myself that I was just an
actor."

"I am not quite pro-Disneyland. I first went there as a teenager, and it
was a confusing place for a girl from England: Something about the
merging of dark, ancient Europe and 1950s America was very strange. I
remember my father saying, 'Why do they call them "restrooms" at
Disneyland? I don't want to have a rest.' "

Shailene Woodley in Vince; Brie Larson in Balmain.

Shailene Woodley, on breasts:

"When I saw Titanic, I wasn't allowed to look when Kate Winslet took her
robe off and posed naked for Leonardo DiCaprio. My parents were in the
room, and they made me turn my face so that I didn't see her breasts. We
had French doors to our backyard, and I could see the scene reflected
in the glass. I remember thinking, Oh, my God—one day I'm going to have
those, and it's so exciting."

You can see the rest of the 32 actors chosen and read more quotes here.